Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering

Yi Bao, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, has recently received top honors from ScholarGPS. Over the past five years, Bao has been ranked No. 1 globally in the field of fiber-optic sensors across Impact, Quality and overall ScholarGPS Rank. He also ranks in the top 0.05% in structural engineering, sensors and optical fibers, and in the top 0.04% across all fields.

ScholarGPS is a comprehensive scholarly analytics platform that uses advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and data mining to evaluate and rank more than 30 million scholars from more than 120,000 institutions worldwide. It analyzes the impact of more than 200 million scholarly works across 14 broad fields, 177 disciplines and more than 350,000 specialties. ScholarGPS offers detailed, multi-level rankings based on productivity, quality and impact, making it a valuable tool for academia, industry, government and beyond to identify top experts, collaborators and institutions for research, hiring and strategic planning.

Additionally, Bao has been invited to serve as an associate editor for "Engineering Structures," the leading journal in structural engineering. This marks his fourth editorial role, alongside his current positions with "ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering," "Innovative Infrastructure Solutions," and "Frontiers in Physics."

More than 120 registrants, including more than 25 Stevens alumni, attended the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative’s Coastal Flooding Technical Workshop on March 19 at Stevens Institute of Technology.

The full day event brought together more than 30 experts from across New Jersey to discuss mitigation strategies and emerging technologies regarding the increasing challenge of flooding in coastal communities.

Jon Miller, research associate professor in Stevens’ Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, was a co-chair of the workshop and a panel speaker who appreciated the diverse perspectives shared.

"Clearly, flooding is a problem that we have," he said. "It’s a problem that’s not going away, and we’re going to need all of the tools, techniques and brain power of the people in this room to deal with it."

The New Jersey Coastal Resilience Collaborative (NJCRC) is a network of more than 100 diverse partners established to foster sustainable and resilient coastal communities and ecosystems. The NJCRC brings stakeholders and interested parties from all sectors to the table to optimize expertise, and to integrate all elements related to coastal resilience such as, but not limited to: land use and future development, transportation, housing, economic development, public facilities and infrastructure, natural resource protection, and historic properties and cultural resources. Laura Kerr, a senior research engineer in Stevens’ Coastal Engineering Research Group, is one of three managing directors for the NJCRC.

Read more about this event at https://www.njcoastalresilience.org/njcrc-hosts-coastal-flooding-technical-workshop/.

Research associate professor Philip Orton and senior research engineer Laura Kerr, both of Stevens’ Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, are the principal investigator and co-principal investigator, respectively, on a project aimed at observing and warning coastal communities of impending flooding.

Orton and Kerr are working with the University of Delaware on a $474,863 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to demonstrate an approach for improving resilience to flooding in back-barrier estuaries (BBEs). Hundreds of billions of dollars in property are situated on BBEs, which includes the majority of coastal South Florida, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, New Jersey and south Long Island.

Due to their small inlets, existing flood models and forecasts struggle to capture accurate water level and flooding in these regions. They also often lack measurements of wind waves and flooding. This project, titled “Forecasting and Observing Water levels, Waves and Flooding for a Back-Barrier Estuary – Barnegat Bay, NJ” has two primary goals: provide critical observations and coastal hazards forecasts to communities on the New Jersey coast and apply an innovative combination of modeling, wave and water-level observations, street-flood sensors and community engagement.

The project will improve a widely used coastal total water level forecast system, the Stevens Flood Advisory System (SFAS) by creating a nested modeling/forecast area that serves Barnegat Bay and other area communities with more accurate information than is available from other sources.

Building off Phase 1 of a previous study into soil lead exposure, Stevens professor, Dibs Sarkar and research scholar Hadeer Saleh, of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, have received an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to advance to Phase 2.

The project, titled “Lowering Lead Bioavailability in Residential Soils of Variable Physico-Chemical Properties Using Sustainable In-Situ Treatment Methods” studies yard soil from homes built before 1978 that previously contained lead paint. Phase 1 studied yards from homes in Baltimore, Md.; Detroit, Mich.; and San Antonio, Texas; and established a direct relationship between soil contamination and blood-lead level in children from such homes.

Soil properties control lead solubility and bioavailability and optimal chemical amendments for soils that are also sustainable need to be selected and tested. Several studies have shown the effectiveness of chemical amendments, but comprehensive field-scale studies are essential to assess the long-term stability and effectiveness of the amendments to reduce lead bioavailability and mobility.

Phase 2, “Validating Under Scaled-Up Conditions,” will further examine sustainable chemical treatments that showed promise in reducing lead exposure in affected yards in Phase 1. Specifically, Sarkar and Saleh will look to validate the effectiveness of lab-proven chemical amendments; correlate in-vitro lead bioaccessibility data; calculate human health risks for chronic lead exposure; predict potential blood-lead levels with and without chemical amendments; and develop operational guidelines to help homeowners manage the problem.